Playing Reading, Using Hands: Which Activities are Linked to Number-Space Processing in Preschool Children?

Abstract

Literate subjects from Western cultures form spatial-numerical associations (SNA) in left-to-right direction, which follows their reading habits. In preliterate children, sources of SNA directionality are more disputable. One possibility is that SNA follows children's early knowledge about text orientation. It could also reflect ipsilateral/contralateral tendencies in manual task execution. Furthermore, SNA's characteristics could differ depending on the evaluation method used. In this study, we test SNA in preliterate preschoolers using object counting, finger counting, and numerosity arrangement tasks. We examined the relations of SNA to children's directional reading knowledge and their manual response tendencies. Left-to-right SNA was pronounced for object counting, disappeared for the numerosity task, and was reversed for finger counting. In all tasks, left-to-right SNA dominated in children who responded contralaterally with their hand. Reading knowledge was partially related to numerosity-based SNA, but not to other SNAs. Based on these findings, we discuss developmental characteristics of different forms of number-space associations.

Moving attention along the mental number line in preschool age: Study of the operational momentum in 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children's non‐symbolic arithmetic

“…The effect was partly dependent on CP knowledge determined in a give‐a‐number task. Further studies (Patro & Haman, 2017) show that this bias may be independent of children's understanding of writing direction. In Experiment 1, we found analogical RT enhancement in addition when the subject's attention was cued by rightward movement and in subtraction in the leftward movement condition, at the stage of computation.…”

“…Infants, and even neonates, show a preference for larger numerosities on the right and smaller numerosities on the left (Bulf, de Hevia, & Macchi Cassia, 2016; de Hevia, Veggiotti, Streri, & Bonn, 2017). Young children are faster on the left when asked to select a smaller numerosity but more rapid on the right if asked to select a larger numerosity, even before acquiring CP or knowing the direction of reading (Patro & Haman, 2012, 2017), and prefer to scan numerical orders left to right in a search task (McCrink, Perez, & Baruch, 2017; Opfer & Furlong, 2011). However, the classical SNARC effect has not been reported before 8 years of age (van Galen & Reitsma, 2008), and estimation of the position on number line tasks typically yields poor results in younger preschoolers (Berteletti et al., 2010; Sasanguie, De Smedt, Defever, & Reynvoet, 2012).…”

Spatial-Numerical Associations Enhance the Short-Term Memorization of Digit Locations

“…For some authors, this kind of oriented representations of numbers in preliterate children stem nonetheless from environmental reading conventions ( Shaki et al, 2012 ; Göbel et al, 2018 ) whereas, for others, the direction in which pre-schoolers count objects is not necessarily linked to their knowledge about cultural reading practice ( Patro and Haman, 2017 ). In fact, some researchers even adopt a nativist view and argue that babies and animals share the intuition that small quantities are represented on the left of a mental-spatial continuum.…”